How To Make Friends With Yourself

“When you are afraid of something, it might be a fear of darkness, a fear of knives, a fear of guns, or of anything. You can’t just have fear without fear of something. So what is that other? Who is the other? That’s yourself.

There is a story about a man who is locked in a room. He’s sitting in that room, a big room with lots of space and lots of possibilities of noise bouncing back. Things are getting cold and dark and darker. He hears something. So he says ‘Who dat?” When there is no response, he says, “Who dat who said, ‘Who dat?’?” And then he says, “Who dat who said, ‘Who dat?’ when I said ‘Who dat?’?” The antidote to that echo chamber is to make friends with yourself.

– Chögyam Trungpa

I just moved again, I am right here in Hawaii, and I saw myself falling into the trap of lamentation, nostalgia. – Oh, I don’t know anyone yet, – I miss this, -I miss that…. Instead of being grateful for living in this magical land.

I stopped a second to think about why I was being so negative, and complaining about everything.

I was afraid. I am afraid. 

Afraid that we regret our decision to move, afraid that I won’t have friends, or build a community, afraid to not fit in. This fear is inevitable, but when I looked at it, I laughed, because I just arrived, and in order to be part of this community… I need to live, experience, try.

That’s the only way. I have to put myself out there and feel connected with my own truth.

Before we connect with others, we have to be connected with ourselves.

Do you feel the power of this statement?

In order to make friends with ourselves, we have to face our fears, this way we will realize that they are not real, so then we can take them by the hand and live our lives.

The only way that we can prove our fears are not real, is to do what we fear and see what happens. Last week, for example, I went to a meetup, I was so scared to go because I was feeling embarrassed to enter into a community that already exists, I was afraid they wouldn’t like me.

Turned out that they were really nice and didn’t reject me at all. But in order to discover that I had to go there, and see it myself. Once we do that, we are stretching our limits, we are growing and actively knowing ourselves on the process.

You, beautiful woman, are having this opportunity to live in a different place, use this moment not just to explore another culture, but also and most importantly, yourself.

Rediscover yourself, find out who you can be, who you want to be.

You are not alone, I am not alone, we are together, and the same powerful force that runs inside me runs inside you.

Write YES on the comments, if you are ready to start being friends with yourself.

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